Leitmotif/Music

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  • The Alien-like "Weeow Waoow Waooh" sounds in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, That and the martian ULLA.
  • Prokofiev's Peter and The Wolf is composed solely of leitmotifs and narration, and is frequently used to introduce the concept to children.
  • As numerous references on this page make clear, Richard Wagner may be considered the KING of the Leitmotif; though he was not its inventor, he certainly made the most extensive, elaborate, and probably the most intelligent use of it throughout the canon of his works. His great Ring Cycle, for instance, consists almost entirely of a symphonic/dramatic development and interweaving of motives and themes and had a good 30 or 40 different ones in it!
  • Karel Husa's four movement piece "Music for Prague 1968" has a few of these as well. The piccolo at the beginning and end of movt. 1 represents a songbird, the symbol for freedom. The ending sounds like it's dying. One part of the first movt. introduces the brass section, which represents the Soviets marching in and attacking with tanks and guns. A pretty good example of the first movt. is found here, though the best way to listen to this would be to close your eyes and imagine what it would've been like.
  • Death metal band Bolt Thrower have the centrepiece song on most of their albums begin with a fade into the same riff, developing over the years. In its first iteration, World Eater, and in most since, it is also the outro to the song.
  • Coheed and Cambria have the "Time Skip" leitmotif appearing on several tracks across multiple albums, denoting...well, guess.